New controversy rocks BPL

Two months have passed since the completion of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL) but controversies are still chasing the tournament. Nasum Ahmed, the icon player of Chattogram Challengers franchise, has claimed that he hasn't received the full payment according to the contract. But the franchise has denied the allegation, saying that Nasum's statement is not true.

Chattogram Challengers have stated that Nasum has received the full payment and they have sent the necessary evidence to the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB). The franchise even mentioned that it hasn't received any formal complaint regarding the issue. The Challengers are now claiming that Nasum Ahmed has been claiming undue payment and said that Nasum's statement is 'false and offensive'.

Earlier, Nasum said, "Chattogram didn't give me the money they had promised. I have tried to contact them but none of them are picking up the phone."

The team denied the allegations and arranged a formal press conference on Tuesday regarding the issue. Rifatuzzaman, the owner of the team, spoke there. After that, the team sent a press release. The statement was published in the team's official Facebook page on Wednesday as well.

The statement read, "Assalamualaikum.  Recently our favorite cricketer of Chittagong Challengers Nasum Ahmed made some statements. None of which is true and we are shocked by his behavior. In such a situation, we are explaining the whole thing from our side. We hope that Nasum will understand our love. The door to the Challengers will always be open for him.

You are aware that young talent Nasum Ahmed was nominated by Chittagong Challengers as their icon cricketer in the 7th edition of Bangladesh Premier League (BPL). This spinner also played in our team in the seventh edition. That is why we (Chittagong Challengers) included him in the team through direct signing as per the rules of BPL. The main purpose of having him was to promote this young talent. It was our dream to see him encourage more young cricketers in the country. However, some of his untruthful and offensive statements involving Chittagong Challengers have shocked us recently.

It is to be mentioned that in the seventh edition he was contracted to Challengers for 5 lakh rupees. We (Chittagong Challengers) concluded a written agreement with Nasum Ahmed in accordance with the rules of the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) and the BPL Governing Council. At the time of that agreement with the Challengers (22-12-2021) the BPL Governing Council had not fixed his (Nasum) base price. That is why the amount of money was not mentioned in the contract letter. Not only that, at that time he did not demand any fixed fee. Subsequently, the BPL Governing Council fixed the price and as per the agreement, we paid 100% of the fee in three installments through the bank. The last installment has been paid on March 10, 2022. Not only that, we also paid his VAT as per the rules. And we have explained the tax return to Nasum Ahmed. The amount paid to him is 35 lakh rupees (including VAT).

The extra debt he is currently claiming is completely unreasonable to us. Not only that, the allegations he made against the Challengers in the news are also untrue. Our question is if we paid him less than the contract then why didn't he inform the BCB and BPL Governing Council at that time! He also did not inform the appropriate authorities at that time about the allegations he had made in the context of Covid-19. We asked him to stay with another cricketer of the team at that time. But he did not agree to stay with that cricketer.

Long after the end of the 7th edition of the BPL, suddenly such a demand seems to be intentional! We would like to say with respect to this young cricketer of the national team, Chittagong Challengers family has given all the facilities to Nasum Ahmed. The team even arranged for him to stay at the hotel with his wife during the event.

We have already emailed the matter to the Bangladesh Cricket Board and the BPL Governing Council. Not only that, we will soon send a letter to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the BCB requesting him to investigate the matter. Our request to the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) is to take action subject to proper investigation."